The Man Behind the Dream

I Must Resist: The Life and Letters of Bayard Rustin
Edited by Michael G. Long
City Lights Books. 574 pages, $19.95

WHO WAS Bayard Rustin? Ask that question of most Americans, even those who claim to have a good working knowledge of modern U.S. history, and you’re likely to receive blank stares. March 17 of this year was the centenary of Rustin’s birth, an event marked by memorials and a fair amount of press coverage. But despite his admirably active life—more than four decades of protesting, writing, and speaking in support of a wide array of civil rights causes—Rustin, who died in 1987 at the age of 75, remains largely unknown to most Americans.

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